Saturday, November 27, 2010

Congratulations to the FBI, which has thwarted a bomb plot in Portland, Oregon.
Because of the FBI's efforts, Mohamed Osman Mohamud was prevented from igniting a bomb at a Christmas Tree-lighting celebration.
Mr. Mohamud, thinking he was going to ignite the bomb, drove to the corner of the square at Southwest Yamhill Street and Sixth Avenue in downtown Portland and attempted to set off the explosives packed inside his van.
The public was never in danger, however, since the "bomb" had been provided to Mr. Mohamud by the FBI, and wouldn't have ignited in the middle of a forest fire.
We do not yet know if the FBI provided Mr. Mohamud with the van.
The FBI did help him test a similar bomb someplace out in the boondocks.
This is called entrapment.

In providing this doofus with a fake bomb, working with him on his plans to kill people, and essentially enabling and encouraging his criminal activities, the FBI has created and saved jobs for numerous FBI agents.
They have given the citizens of Portland Oregon some Performance Art that will encourage them to give away more and more of their rights, privacy, and property in the name of public safety.
In the words of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, "The system worked".

"The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, bows, spears, firearms or other types of arms. The possession of these elements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to permit uprising." - Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Japanese Shogun, August 29, 1558

Friday, November 26, 2010

With all the naked viewing and groping going on, I wonder if this is the United States of America or the back room of an adult video store. We have two major problems here, the TSA and their intrusive unconstitutional invasions of our rights, and the bigger question of why are we turning into a police state.

Let's start with the TSA. How many passengers have I seen interviewed on TV who all share the notion that “If it makes us safer then I think it is a good idea. I just want to get to my destination in one piece.” Not only does this presume that the government is more capable at assuring safety than private citizens, but it also illustrates an alarming trend in this country where we have become willing to so easily trade freedom for the illusion of safety (or prosperity, or charity).

Let me ask you this - who has the greatest interest in safe and secure airplanes? The government? On the contrary, the people themselves have the greatest self interest in safety. The airlines would not want to jeopardize their reputation, their financial security, nor the lives of the passengers. Then there would be the insurance companies who insure those planes who would insist on the airlines taking proper steps for safe travel. And finally there are the passengers, who are so interested in safety that they willingly bend over and accept the government's intrusion. So we now have three key private players with major interest in the safety of planes.

The TSA only had a 2 year contract before the airlines could opt out. I believe it is time for America’s airlines to opt out, or for the people to opt out of America’s airlines. Let airlines decide what security policies they employ, and then let the free people of America choose which airlines they feel safest flying. This simply means if you don't want to blow up prematurely (if blowing up was already on your agenda), ride on a plane with tight professional security, and if you don't want to pay more for a ticket (or be probed) ride on the plane without it. Freedom and security is not a trade off. Freedom IS security.

If you believe that the Federal Government has the greatest interest in a secure plane, or that we should employ a more intrusive “papers please” approach or the Israeli model of rapid fire interrogations, let me ask you a few questions. If we could make airlines 100% safe, so safe that we know that a terrorist will never board a plane and take it over, would that be the end of terrorism as we know it? Do secure airlines mean a secure America? Hardly, considering that in America we have thousands of events held daily where greater numbers of people gather.

Which brings us to the title of this article The Forest, The Trees, and the TSA. The TSA is actually only a symptom, while the real problem is our foreign policy. Our history in the Middle East did not start on September 11, 2001. Understanding our involvement around the world and how it has a habit of coming to roost is key before we end up with check points outside our children’s soccer games.

Though any step towards privatization in the airline industry is an improvement, the ultimate solution to our problems is bringing our troops home and minding our own business. Foreign beligerence is immoral, incredibly costly, and it threatens our security by inspiring people to hate us.

This is not a blame America first mentality. This is blame bad policy first. The fact is that our foreign policy of a trillion dollars a year is bankrupting this country. The fact is that our involvement in these countries is the main reason some want to attack us. The fact is that the TSA represents a victory for the terrorists and a loss for freedom, and facts are never unpatriotic. We are accepting a Federal government to protect our freedom when the Federal Government Military/Security State is openly hostile to freedom.

We have sent the government scrambling to find new ways to intrude on our rights, without realizing that our current foreign policy of entangling alliances and questionable corporate intent are the opposite of what our founders envisioned. We need to think about this the next time we see a Fox News report about the impending threat of Iran, followed by an advertisement sponsored by Lockheed Martin. America can can continue down a road of war, terror, insecurity and an ever increasing police state or we can choose a new direction of peace, commerce, security and a foreign policy of freedom.

To me the choice is clear.

John Jay Myers a small businessman from Dallas Texas ran for chair of the LNC, is a member of the Texas Libertarian Executive Committee and the Vice Chair of the Dallas County Libertarian Party.

From Smart Girl Politics:According to HHS, waivers depend on “a series of factors including whether or not a premium increase is large or if a significant number of enrollees would lose access to their current plan because the coverage would not be offered in the absence of a waiver.”

China and Russia are now using the yuan and the ruble in their trade relationships.
They used to use the dollar.
Why the change? Why is everyone suddenly abandoning the dollar as the currency of international trade?

We're printing too many dollars.
Why does it matter which currency the rest of the world uses for these exchanges? Go here.

The dollar reserve currency status allows the U.S. to run up high deficits and have its debt be denominated in the U.S. dollar, which in turn enables it to print unlimited dollars and inflate its way out of debt. America, understandably, wants to protect these privileges.

The rest of the world is not populated with economic idiots who believe that we can spend our way out of debt. They also won't use dollars if we're going to try to print our way out of debt.
It really is that simple.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Go here to read about the latest pronouncements of Saint Albert, The Goracle Of Music City, Tennessee.
He didn't blow a lot of money to save the planet or the polar bears.
He did it to get elected. Saint Albert is now admitting that his support for ethanol was a mistake.

Here's Ed Morrisey, in the article linked above:

Why, then, did Gore spend most of the last two decades pushing for ethanol subsidies? It wasn’t because he was trying to help humanity:

Well, here's The Goracle:“One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.”

Well, everyone who isn't trying to get into his Prius with a recycling bin shoved up his ass already knew that. Can we have our incandescent bulbs back now?

I'm just glad that he's finally admitting it.
How long until he admits that the rest of his ClimatePanic is a scam to buy votes and to help subsidize Green stuff ?

Monday, November 22, 2010

There's usually a lot of noise and confusion surrounding the 2nd Amendment, the section in our Bill Of Rights which, in my opinion, gives me the right to own guns.

The amendment reads as follows:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

There it is, sitting in the second seat of the bus, with all the other restrictions on government power.
Every other bullet point in the Bill Of Rights is designed to limit the power of government in relation to the governed, and we drift off into silliness when we try to see Amendment #2 through any other lens. The 2nd Amendment, just like all the others, is meant to protect us from government, just like the other nine amendments in the Bill Of Rights.

Unfortunately, after years of court cases brought by the Nanny State, this is how many of us now see the original intent of the amendment:

Since our government needs an army to preserve freedom and ward off foreign invaders, we grudgingly admit that members of our primitive Citizen Militias should be allowed to own weapons.

And since we no longer have a Citizen Militia that has to get out of bed in the middle of the night to fight the Redcoats, we no longer have a need for guns in our homes. Or so they would have us believe.

The guys who composed the Bill Of Rights wanted to put some severe limits on government power. They knew that if left unchecked, without ironclad protections, the governing class would try to restrict freedom. I don't understand the mindset of nannies and busybodies, but the last 10 years have seen an alarming rise in those pesky species of political varmints. Most libertarians share that concern with The Founders. Mostly because they believe that the 2nd Amendment, just like all the others, is meant to protect us from government, just like the other nine amendments in the Bill Of Rights !!

Go here and browse through the complete Bill Of Rights. Look at how they're worded. Many of them have a little disclaimer that grudgingly admit that, dammit, some level of government is necessary. But look at the phrases used:

....but in a manner prescribed by law.....but upon probable cause........unless on a presenment or indictment........shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

In these amendments, The Founders are saying that because of the necessary evils of courts, trials, responses to emergencies, and the occasional need to search a house, there are going to be certain rules in place to ensure that government doesn't go too far.

In Amendment #2, The Founders agree that the government needs a militia. The militia is a necessary evil, no more, no less.
But because the government gets to have a militia, and government always needs to be held in check, guess what? Well, the right of everyone else to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Here's an interpretation of the 2nd Amendment that I believe is much closer to the original intent:

Since a government militia is an unfortunate necessity, and we have a distrust of government in all its forms, the citizens who are not members of the militia have a duty to keep and bear arms. Just in case the government's militia starts getting uppity.

If you read that version in the context of the other nine government restraints in the Bill Of Rights, the wording makes a lot more sense, doesn't it?

Unfortunately for the powerful, the plight of the biblical Job is a story with perennial resonance. A man seemingly rich in the gifts life has to offer, happy and blessed, finds himself — unjustly, from his perspective — bereft. Protected and apparently invincible one day, he is buffeted as God turns his back on his former beloved, producing rage, confusion and self-pity. In the history of the American presidency, reversal happens time and time again: Lyndon Johnson declining to run four years after his landslide victory in 1964, George H. W. Bush losing re-election after winning the Persian Gulf war of 1991, Bill Clinton in the 1994 midterms, and now Barack Obama.

....Outside politics, President Obama thinks of himself less as a professor or community organizer and more as a writer — a man who observes reality, interprets it internally, and then recasts it on the page in his own voice and through his own eyes. And he is a reader of serious books.

Given that, he might find Alter’s new book(on the Old Testament character Job) congenial. John Boehner is not exactly a case of boils, but the president may feel differently at the moment, and thus the story of Job could be of some use to him.

Like Obama, Job was once the highly favored one:

Would that I were as in moons of yore, as the days when God watched over me,
when he shined his lamp over my head. . . .

But the Lord withdraws his protection, inflicting pain and death and misery on Job, who cries:

Terror rolls over me, pursues my path like the wind. . . .
At night my limbs are pierced, and my sinews know no rest.
With great power he seizes my garment, grabs hold of me at the collar.
He hurls me into the muck, and I become like dust and ashes.

God is having none of it. He will not be questioned by a mortal, even a mortal whom he once loved and who has honored him. Fairly snarling, the Lord taunts Job from a whirlwind: “Where were you when I founded earth? / Tell, if you know understanding.”

Ah, the tragedy of it all !!! The ManGod has fallen !!! Of all the grasping and desperate and failed attempts to apply some significance to the behavior of this mediocre Chicago con artist, this one from Jon Meacham is probably the worst.

Barack Obama now has more in common with King Solomon than he does with Job. Barack Obama has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. In less than two years, Obama has:

1) Given 3/4 trillion dollars of pork to his contributors,2) Temporarily socialized two major auto companies, both of which employ thousands of his contributors, and relieved them of the responsibility for their actions,3) Relieved his upper and lower end contributors of having to face the music for their bad housing investments,4) Socialized American medicine, a move guaranteed to increase the number, loyalty, and power of his party's contributors, 5) Began paying for these thefts with "quantitative easing", an economics term that means "printing a bunch of money", 6) And he did all this while maintaining his posture as an intellectual who reads "serious books", in Meacham's phrase.

To those of us who see the goal of politics as a series of spectacular transfers of wealth, Barack Obama is not Job. Not even close. He's the most succesful president in American history.